By Cheryl Sullenger
Boston, MA – An ambulance transported a patient from the Women’s Health Services abortion clinic in Brookline, Massachusetts, to a local hospital for emergency treatment on August 21, 2015. The incident was reported in an e-mail distributed by Operation Rescue Boston.
UPDATE Feb. 23, 2016: See video with 911 recording!
While this is one of 44 such incidents at abortion clinics documented by Operation Rescue this year, it is a particularly disturbing one because of the clinic’s connections with aborted human fetal tissue experimentation done on the brains of Down syndrome and healthy babies obtained without consent of the mothers.
Abortionist Laurent C. Delli-Bovi, who is the founder and Medical Director at Women’s Health Services where abortions are done up to 23 weeks, co-authored a 2011 paper that studied the brains of 22 aborted babies, aged 14-22 weeks, to explore why those with Down syndrome experience mental retardation and early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. The study was funded with public money from the National Institutes of Health.
Of the 22 baby brains used for experimentation, 11 were harvested from five boys and six girls with Down syndrome, while the other 11 brains were harvested from five boys and six girls without the genetic disorder. The latter were used as control subjects during the experimentation process.
All 22 aborted babies’ brains were used for experimentation within 2-4 hours after their deaths. This means that the brains were rushed to researchers who were standing by and had likely been notified that the brains were going to be available.
But the clincher is this: none of the mothers of these aborted babies consented to the use of their babies’ brains in Delli-Bovi’s research project.
Table 1-Aborted Fetal Brain Tissue Used in Delli-Bovi's Study
According to the “Materials and Methods” portion of the paper:
The de-identified human discarded tissue was obtained from pathological samples during autopsy. The tissue sections from DS and age-matched control brains (14–21W GA) were used in this study for each of the experiments described. It is a discarded tissue protocol and is exempt from informed consent, as determined by the ethics and [Institutional Review Board] review committee at [Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center], and no informed consent was obtained. [Emphasis added]
Because the brains of these 22 babies were considered “discarded tissue,” no consent from the mothers was ever obtained.
“The lack of maternal consent poses real moral and ethical problem. Women who are aborting babies in Massachusetts have no idea that the remains of their babies are being used for experimentation,” said Troy Newman of Operation Rescue, who also serves on the Board of the Center for Medical Progress (CMP). “We already know that Down syndrome babies are aggressively targeted for abortion. Now it appears their remains are singled out for human experimentation. Delli-Bovi’s position at an abortion clinic would certainly put a free and unlimited supply of baby organs at her fingertips.”
The CMP has recently released a number of videos that show evidence of Planned Parenthood’s participation in the illegal trade of aborted baby tissue for “financial consideration.”
One of the videos mentioned that Planned Parenthood abortionists participate in their own experimentation using aborted baby remains, which is in line with Delli-Bovi’s practices and indicates a wider connection between abortionists and fetal tissue experimentation.
While the abortion clinic where Delli-Bovi works is not a Planned Parenthood affiliate, the news that her experimentation on fetal brains obtained without maternal consent is still extremely troubling on a number of points.
In another video, the difficulties of obtaining neural (brain) tissue are discussed. It was noted that harvesting intact heads was the best way to “protect” the brains during transport. One former procurement technician, Holly O’Donnell, described her particularly horrifying experience harvesting a brain from an aborted baby whose heart was still beating.
CMP videos also reveal that Planned Parenthood abortionists alter abortion procedures to ensure organs are kept intact so as to be suitable for sale. Planned Parenthood’s Senior Medical Director, Deborah Nucatola, is heard describing her use of the banned Partial Birth Abortion Procedure when she knows that certain organs have been requested by researchers. Both of these practices are also illegal.
There are good reasons why altering abortion procedures to ensure more intact baby cadavers is illegal. Second trimester are more risky than earlier ones under the best of conditions. Abortionists are required to use the method that poses the least risk to patients. However, altering procedures to ensure more intact fetal remains means the procedures used pose even more risks to women.
Should a woman who experienced an altered abortion ever suffer harm, that would represent an egregious breech in medical ethics and patient care standards that could cost an abortionist his or her medical license.
This brings us back to the August 21 medical emergency at Delli-Bovi’s Women’s Health Services and raises serious questions. Was this an abortion-related emergency and was Delli-Bovi involved? Are fetal cadavers used in her experiments obtained from Women’s Health Services? Are abortion procedures altered to ensure intact specimens? Was the woman transported by ambulance on August 21 subject to an altered procedure so her baby’s remains could be harvested?
Could it be possible that Delli-Bovi pressures women pregnant with Down syndrome babies to abort so the brains or other body parts can be harvested?
Following North Dakota’s lead, which made it illegal in 2013 for a doctor to abort babies due to genetic fetal anomalies, Ohio introduced controversial legislation this year to protect babies prenatally diagnosed with Down Syndrome from abortion. But this legislation has suffered under relentless attacks by the main stream media that favors the extermination of Down syndrome babies. Already, it is estimated that 92% of babies that receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome are aborted.
When the CMP videos were first released in July, Massachusetts was among the first to launch a state-wide investigation into Planned Parenthood to determine if laws were being committed. It was also the among the first to “clear” Planned Parenthood because the Massachusetts state affiliate apparently does not participate in the same “fetuses for dollars” scheme discovered in other states.
However, the so-called “investigation” stopped short of inquiring of other Massachusetts abortion facilities about their fetal tissue practices.
In addition, Operation Rescue earlier reported that the University of Massachusetts Medical School obtained $29,000 worth of “fetal cadaverous tissue” for use in experiments. Operation Rescue has since obtained purchase orders for fetal tissue totaling an additional $57,130 in public funding.
While Planned Parenthood may not be in the fetal tissue business in Massachusetts, it is clear that there is plenty of activity in that state involving experimentation using dubiously obtained aborted baby remains – with or without maternal consent.
“We are looking at a much broader problem than just Planned Parenthood. At this juncture, all clinics and programs related to this human aborted fetal tissue experimentation must be investigated for legal and ethical lapses,” said Newman. “Also, the so-called ethics that allow for the extermination of babies based on their genetic composition must be re-examined. We denounce the eugenics movement embraced by WWII era Nazis that led to the extermination of 6 million Jews and inhumane experimentation on helpless children. Yet we still allow the same eugenics philosophy to be applied to the weak and disabled, right down to experimentation on helpless babies. It’s time to wake up to where we are and where we are headed. If we don’t protect the sanctity of all life now, then we are all at risk of future ‘termination’ when we don’t meet someone’s standard of perfection or usefulness, and that is somewhere none of us should want to go.”
